Pakistani Premier Prevails in Clash With General

By CELIA W. DUGGER

Published: October 20, 1998

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Oct. 18—
In the welter of events unfolding here, one remarkable episode stands out: after the chief of the powerful Pakistani Army got in hot water for publicly criticizing the Prime Minister and proposing a stronger military role in making policy, it was the general who lost his job, not the Prime Minister.

There was no coup, although generals have ruled Pakistan for almost half of its 51-year history, and prime ministers have been dismissed in earlier clashes with the army.

Instead, Gen. Jehangir Karamat quietly resigned on Oct. 7, and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif immediately replaced him with another army commander, Pervez Musharraf. Last week, in a smooth transition, the new Chief of the Army Staff installed his own team of top officers.

Many in the opposition parties bemoan the loss of General Karamat, a popular figure who was widely regarded as a thoughtful, cautious democrat, and accuse the Prime Minister of being a power-hungry politician eager to dominate yet another arm of the Government.

But personalities aside, the elected Government was able to exercise its authority over the military without dire consequences -- at least not yet. And that is a marker of sorts in a country whose modern history has been dominated by the struggle between military and civilian leaders.

''In a democratic society, would an army chief talk about the Government like that?'' said Mushahid Hussain, a Cabinet member in charge of Pakistan's Ministry of Information. ''What happened to General MacArthur? Mr. Truman did not waste much time. Pakistan is finally becoming a normal democratic society.''

Mr. Hussain probably overstates the case for normalcy here. After all, Pakistan is still a country where less than 1 percent of the population bothers to pay taxes, where corruption is endemic and sectarian violence rages. On Saturday, hit squads gunned down a former Governor of Sindh province in Karachi and a Muslim leader in Islamabad.

Still, Pakistan's political structure has changed profoundly in the year and a half since Mr. Sharif was elected by a landslide -- changed in ways that have clearly strengthened the Prime Minister, even as they weakened the army.

Under constitutional amendments passed by a consensus vote of all parties after his election, the Prime Minister can dismiss any legislator in his party who votes against him, and he selects the army's Chief of Staff.

One of the two amendments ended a crucial vestige of military rule that had allowed an appointed president to choose the army chief and to dismiss the elected prime minister, a power that was used three times in the last decade to oust Mr. Sharif and his archrival, Benazir Bhutto.

The world's newest nuclear power, the host to archrival India for talks here during the last week, seems to be turning into a more stable democracy, Western diplomats say. But paradoxically, although Mr. Sharif has acted decisively to consolidate his political power, he has been reluctant to use it to tackle the country's deep-seated problems, many political experts here say.

''He's a very powerful Prime Minister with no power at all,'' said Samina Ahmed, a political scientist and consultant to private foundations. ''Power is tangible when you can exercise it. In Pakistan today, the Government doesn't seem capable of exercising it.''

His action on utility rates is a case in point. Last year, the two biggest electrical utilities -- which members of his own Government describe as bloated, corrupt and inefficient -- lost $1.6 billion. But instead of reining in the bureaucracy and raising rates as international lenders have requested, he announced last week that he was cutting electricity rates 30 percent, a move sure to spill more red ink.

Pakistan is desperately trying to persuade the International Monetary Fund to give it a financial bailout to forestall defaulting on $30 billion in foreign debt -- a financial crisis badly worsened by sanctions imposed after Pakistan conducted the nuclear tests.

But Mr. Sharif missed no opportunity last week to express defiance to reporters following him, saying he would not bow to the fiscal conditions that the I.M.F. was setting, like higher electricity rates.

''I cannot make anti-people decisions that might burden the lives of common people,'' he said.

Nor has Mr. Sharif moved to collect taxes from the feudal landlords who have never paid anything to the cash-poor Government, which has such limited resources for education that most of its people cannot read and write. And when the Prime Minister, himself a millionaire industrialist who pays very little personal income tax, sought to impose a sales tax and shopkeepers responded with a general strike, Mr. Sharif quickly backed off.

Mr. Sharif has proposed another constitutional amendment that is widely seen as an attempt to increase his power as well as to steal the thunder of militant Islamic groups, which have little influence at the polls but can turn out angry crowds in the streets. The amendment would give the federal Government the duty to enforce an Islamic legal system based on the Koran. As originally written, the bill said its provisions would apply ''notwithstanding anything contained in the Constitution, any law or judgment of any court.''

The National Assembly passed a diluted version of the bill, but officials in the Sharif administration concede that they do not have the votes to get the measure through the Senate, where his party does not have the requisite two-thirds majority.

While it is difficult to measure Mr. Sharif's popularity with the overwhelming majority of Pakistanis, who are illiterate rural people, he is clearly a disappointment to many of the educated elite who are often quoted in the feisty, no-holds-barred press.

And the discontent with Mr. Sharif's leadership clearly extends to the military. Scholars who have studied Pakistan's Army, generally considered the country's most professional and competent institution, say General Karamat would never have publicly assailed the Prime Minister's Government for its political failings unless his views were widely shared by the top command.

His proposal for a national security council that would involve the army and technocrats in making policy was seen by some as a benign attempt to improve the quality of government. But others said the idea had a history that gives it more sinister overtones. When the military dictator Mohammad Zia ul-Haq floated the idea of such a council in the 1970's and 1980's, he intended it to be an institutional means for the military to veto national policies it disliked.

''General Karamat's proposal would have ended the unfettered civilian authority that Nawaz Sharif has tried to exercise,'' said Selig Harrison, an expert on South Asia.

While some experts say they believe that the army may yet step in if conditions in Pakistan worsen seriously, most seem to agree that a military takeover is far less appetizing to the generals themselves than in the past. The economy here is in such a mess that military men with no particular expertise in managing the country's finances are unlikely to leap at the chance to run the show.

With the end of the appointed president's power to dismiss the prime minister, the army would have little option but a naked coup without the facade of constitutionality that the presidential system allowed.

Also, the generals are keenly aware that a military coup would further isolate Pakistan internationally at a time when it needs help from abroad. Gone are the cold war days when the United States supported a Pakistani dictator as part of a proxy war to parry the Soviet Union's influence in Afghanistan.

Still, those who know Pakistan's modern history do not rule out a reassertion of the army's power. What if the I.M.F. does not give Pakistan a bailout package? What if the economy crumbles and social order disintegrates?

''Not one elected Government has managed to complete its full term of office in Pakistan, ever,'' said Ms. Ahmed, the political scientist. ''So there you are. These are still early days.''

I.M.F. Defers Loan Talks

WASHINGTON, Oct. 19 (Reuters) -- The International Monetary Fund has postponed loan talks with Pakistan, and a spokesman said today that new talks would depend on the Government's resolving issues with power companies.

The spokesman said no new date had been set for the resumption of discussions, originally due to start later this week. Pakistan, hit by international sanctions imposed after it tested nuclear devices, is looking for I.M.F. loans to help it close a $5 billion balance-of-payments deficit.

Pakistani officials said this weekend that the mission by I.M.F. experts to Pakistan had been delayed, partly because of the problems with the power companies. Some officials have accused the independent producers and the state company of overcharging and of obtaining contracts through corruption.

Pakistan has already run up arrears on $32 billion of foreign debt and news of the delay of the mission helped to drive share prices lower on the Karachi stock exchange today and late last week.

The spokesman said the resumption of discussions ''depends to a great degree on the satisfactory resolution of the Government's conflict with the independent power producers,'' as well as the issue of the state Water and Power Development Authority.

''If these issues are satisfactorily resolved, the I.M.F. stands ready to proceed with the mission and to finalize details of Pakistan's macroeconomic program,'' he said.